The Last Second Chance
by Rei10
Summary: What happens when a gang is busted, and the only survivor is given a chance to turn her life around?
1. Intro

Disclaimer: Joss owns all, unfortunately.  
  
Rating: PG13-R; "we're talking violence, stong language, adult content" (That's Joss' too)  
  
Feedback: It's sad that you really had to ask...  
  
Synopsis: Ahhh, AU!!! What happens when a gang is busted and the only surviver is given a chance to turn her life around? Two worlds collide- the world of art, and the world or street fighters.  
  
INTRO  
  
A gentle breeze cut through the still summer air causing the drooping leaf strands of the Weeping Willow Tree, which stood tall and proud at the center of Swanson Park, to sway.  
  
The temperature was perfect and the humidity was low, if at all. It was the kind of day to go and do whatever it was you wanted. For many, that included baseball, football, soccer, bike riding, dog walking, among other outdoorsy things.  
  
In the case of Willow Rosenburg, this meant settling down under the tree that shared her name and doing something artsy like cracking into a good book, drawing, or writing poetry.  
  
For Tara Maclay however, this meant revving up with her motorcycle gang and wreaking havoc on the same beautiful world that the young Rosenburg wrote about in her poems.  
  
But this day was more than just that.  
  
This day would be one of the most important days in Majickal History.  
  
On this day, the lives of Bad-Ass Tara Maclay and Sickeningly-Sweet Willow Rosenburg would collide.  
  
Their essences would combine.  
  
The effect would be cataclysmic.  
  
~Fin Intro~ 


	2. Chainsaw From Hell

Chapter 2- Chainsaws from hell  
  
A deafening roar cut through the silence of that beautiful day like a chainsaw.  
  
A Chainsaw from hell to be exact.  
  
The Chainsaw biker gang was the worst in town, they had ruled Sunnydale since before anyone could remember. They were the kids you brother would tell you about right before bed, just so he could watch you squirm, nightmares racing through your mind's eye.  
  
Donny Maclay had been one of the best Chainsaws Sunnydale had ever seen, that kid was on his way straight to the top. Until the day when he was shot by a member of a rival gang.  
  
When his younger sister, Tara, heard the news she vowed to bring Donny honor, and took his place as second in command.  
  
So on this day, five years later, Tara Maclay revved up her bike for a day of fun.  
  
Chainsaw style...  
  
"Blessed be the wind and rain..." young Willow Rosenburg chewed her pencil thoughtfully, "Gain, pain, train, lame..."  
  
The breeze ruffled the pages of her poem book, she sighed.  
  
Inspiration was needed.  
  
Little did the Freshman know...  
  
...Inspiration was on it's way...  
  
~fin chapter 2~ 


	3. Shot

Chapter 3- Shot  
  
As the growl of motorcycle engines died down, all that could be heard was shouting, gunshots, and the wailing of sirens.  
  
I saw it all, Rex, my best friend pulling his gun.  
  
Four men were down, three men and one hero.  
  
He lie at my fee, the King of the Chainsaws.  
  
Rex Luther.  
  
My best friend since we were three, Rex looked up at me with sightless eyes. I watched his shimmering green orbs fill with deadly fog.  
  
I dropped to my knees and craddled my fallen comrade's heavy head.  
  
It had taken six shots to the stomach to down Rex.  
  
He'd be proud.  
  
His lips were red with blood and his prone body was limp and twisted.  
  
I heard yelling.  
  
Shouted comands to drop our weapons, to stop the street fight we were riding to when we were caught.  
  
There was a hand on my arm, Maggie Black, she was pulling me up and away from the corpse of our heroic leader.  
  
I turned to look into her sharp blue eyes, but instead I saw something I had never expected of Maggie.  
  
I saw tears stained on her pointed cheek bones, and her orbs were as deep and dark as the depths of the dead sea.  
  
Mist.  
  
More mist.  
  
I don't like this fog, it is always followed by pain and anguish, horror and guilt, and blood. The fog is always followed by blood.  
  
Death overtook Maggie and she collapsed in my arms, a stain on her chest where the bullet had ripped her open. I looked behind her to were a cop held a gun up at firing level, smoke steaming from it's tip.  
  
I was held stiff in the gun's eye. It's pupil quickly dialated.  
  
More shooting, it was deafening.  
  
Horrible.  
  
Shit!  
  
A could rush blasted through me like opening the front door on a chilly winter morning.  
  
I felt myself falling, falling, falling...  
  
I tried to keep my eyes open, focused.  
  
Tried to keep the deadly fog from filling my gaze, but all I could see was red...  
  
~fin chapter 3~ 


	4. Mystery Girl

A lot of kids would be glad to trade places with me, because I never have to deal with my parents due to their extreme jobs. Mum and Dad take their jobs very seriously, but I guess they need to.  
  
Dad is a doctor in the ER, if he didn't take his job seriously, a lot of people would die.  
  
Mom is a youth correction manager; in other words, her job is to straighten out So-Cal's troubled youth. If she didn't take her job seriously the world would be filled with raving lunatics.  
  
You would think that life with parents who have such cool jobs would be great.  
  
Hate to break it to you, but you'd be wrong.  
  
Those who said it would be so boring you could break down and cry would be right. We've fallen into a rut, my parents and I, a set path, nothing new.  
  
Sleep.  
  
Work.  
  
Home.  
  
Food.  
  
TV.  
  
Bed.  
  
Get up and do it all over again.  
  
The only variety we have is whatever I happen to pop in the microwave for dinner- sometimes pizza, sometimes EZMac. Once, I even nuked one of those little breaded chicken breasts from the freezer, you know, the ones everybody has but no one ever eats? Yeah, those.  
  
What's really annoying is the talk: We talk while we eat, like we just can't eat in peace-  
  
(The following is an impression done with an over-done voice-pitch for mum and dad respectively)  
  
"How was work, Sweetheart?" "Work was hell, Honey, there was a car accident, blood everywhere. How about your day, Sweet Honey Lover Cakes?" "Well, we have a new boy at the institute, rambunctious little youngster set a bum on fire." "Well, that's nice. How was your day, Willow? Write any new poetry?" "Yes, kind father of mine, I did, and my day was utterly fantastic. The sun was shining and the birds were singing, I had a smile on my face and a song in my heart!"  
  
They're always so nice, to a point where you want to gag. I try to make my parents happy, so I put on an act. I pretend to be sweet like sugar, instead of the lime I am.  
  
They act like they care about me, but they don't. Once, when my dad came home drunk after a party, he said I was an accident, that they didn't really want a kid. He said that the condom broke. I cried for hours.  
  
That night was the first time I wrote a poem. It felt so right, I kept doing it, and by the end of the night I had twenty or more.  
  
The next day at school my teacher found my book and read it, she pulled me aside after class and practically forced me to join her creative writing class.  
  
A year and a half later, and I have quite the reputation. The local newspaper has done some articles, calling me the newest child prodigy. It's kind of annoying.  
  
My parents are very supportive, to a point where you want to gag. What can I say? My life is a gag fest. They pay the entry fees to all the prestigious contests and enter my stuff without even asking. They force me into the talent show to read my poetry. Little do they know poetry is my way to vent, not my way to fame.  
  
We talk about my poems a lot. Mostly during dinner, but tonight we didn't talk about me at all.  
  
My dad was to busy explaining about a gunshot victim, apparently, part of a gang. The cops had stopped them on their way to a rumble, they started shooting when the kids pulled their guns. The girl was found with a two handguns and a switchblade, obviously ready to spill some blood.  
  
Dad said the girl was incoherent, babbling about fog and mist, none of which made any sense. He said he thought she was mental, a head-case or something. He told Mum to watch out for her, because as soon as she was well enough, she was heading straight to Sunnydale's Juvenal Detention Center.  
  
As he described her case, I felt more and more compelled to give this mystery girl a visit. 


	5. The Sneak Peek

Later that night, after her parents settled down to watch TV, Willow snuck out her window.  
  
She walked into Sunnydale Medical Center's ER wing with a mission. Trekking down the familiar hallways, looking, searching for her destination.  
  
It was like trying to get to the last room at the end of an endless hallway.  
  
Willow approached the forbidden door with caution, slipping slowly past the sleeping guard, and letting her hand come to rest on the cool door handle. She hesitated a moment before opening the door a crack with a gentle down and out motion of the handle.  
  
Peeking in, Willow's jaw dropped to the floor at the sight of the goddess before her.  
  
Willow's senses overwhelmed her, the beeping of the heart monitor, the smell of sanitation and rubber, and the feel of the cool metal doorframe touching her shoulder.  
  
Soon the woman's slumbering radiance seized Willow's breath away. The redhead looked to the patient sheet she grasped tightly in her fist. Tara Maclay.  
  
Tara had stunning golden hair that cascaded down her shoulders like a beautiful waterfall. Her skin was milky smooth and her face had a gentle slope, a slight dip, from her high cheekbones to her perfect chin; her full lips were relaxed in sleep.  
  
Willow's eyes traveled down Tara's body at an agonizingly slow pace, as if trying to take in every inch of the goddess before her. Green orbs paused, settling on the labored rise and fall of Tara's breasts.  
  
The blonde stirred, as if feeling Willow's eyes pressing into her. Her lids flickered with consciousness.  
  
Noticing the movements of the patient, Willow quickly shut the door.  
  
The redhead smiled. She was satisfied.  
  
For she had caught a glimpse of the goddess' eyes, and the deep azure gaze was one she definitely wanted to see again.  
  
Why?  
  
That was the question racing through her mind.  
  
Why was she so intent on seeing this woman again?  
  
What was it that made her feel so compelled to come here in the first place?  
  
A feeling, a gut feeling, like something pulling, yurning to get out.  
  
Fighting almost. Like it was scratching and hissing, trying to claw it's way out.  
  
A huge black panther inside her.  
  
A black panther rooted in Majick.  
  
But Majick was something she knew nothing about. 


	6. Late Night Visit

Chapter 6- Late Night Visit  
  
"What was that girl doing in my room?" I asked myself the next morning while the nurse was checking my vitals. They said I was doing better, that I could go home soon. Well, not home, but to the correction facility.  
  
Correction facility. Just some spiffy words they use to hide it's true meaning- hell. Hell for kids like me who stumble into bad situations.  
  
It wasn't that I needed, or much wanted to be in the Chainsaws. In my family, you do what you have to do to make the family proud and uphold the name.  
  
After my brother's murder, joining the gang was the best thing I could do.  
  
I'm not a bad person, at least, not all the time.  
  
The Chainsaws taught me how to roll with the punches. In the Chainsaws you learned how to outwit the fuzz, how to steal food when you got sick of toast everyday. They taught me how to live, how to survive in this unfair world.  
  
They were more then just friends; they were family.  
  
I came from a pretty decent family, lower middle class, but when we started associating with the gang life got worse. Soon we were living in the streets, or the alleys. Anywhere we could find shelter.  
  
My mum died from hypothermia one winter, it had snowed. It had snowed in Sunnydale, weird huh?  
  
I watched the rain pound down on the hospital window.  
  
Rain is so powerful.  
  
The rain on the window was almost strong enough to break the glass, but when it realized it couldn't it died off into little rivulets of water, just another stream, nothing special.  
  
One among many.  
  
It had its glory, one second when it was big and important. Then that second ended, and it was just another drop of water.  
  
One among many.  
  
Just like that, faster than you could blink.  
  
Sleep began to take over my body, the pounding rain a swift lullaby.  
  
My sleep was riddled with dreams, dreams of the night before.  
  
Who was that girl?  
  
She was so beautiful with her shocking green eyes and her fiery red locks, her slight frame and her long legs.  
  
I opened my eyes to darkness, it was night, but there was a glow radiating from Her.  
  
Red hair, green eyes, there she was.  
  
So beautiful.  
  
Standing at my bedside, watching over me.  
  
She lifted a hand and rested her palm on my cheek.  
  
Shockwaves raced through my body like an electrical current.  
  
I was surprised to hear myself let out a throaty moan.  
  
It was a whimper of want.  
  
Her.  
  
I wanted Her.  
  
Her eyes closed and her lips parted, her head tilting slightly back.  
  
I could tell she was feeling it too.  
  
It was like a drug.  
  
Like a magnet pulling from the depths of the soul, from the bottom of the gut.  
  
It pulled towards her. Like she held the opposite pole. Waiting to receive me.  
  
We both let out a scream, in unison, as the feeling ripped through our bodies.  
  
A feeling like we were being torn apart, every piece taken off and littered around the room.  
  
I opened my eyes, she did too, and I was shocked to see her eyes were pure black.  
  
Black like a hole, a deep hole, the deepest.  
  
Black like the depths of the ocean.  
  
Black.  
  
Deep and scary.  
  
I tore my eyes away from hers; I couldn't look at them any longer without being sucked in.  
  
Glancing around I realized that the room wasn't dark anymore; it was filled with light from streams of blue and red sparkles that darted everywhere like the little pinballs in that machine at the bar that Donny used to take me to when we were little.  
  
I looked back to Her. Her eyes were turning back to their original state, and the red glitter filling the room was thinning. She fell to the ground in a heap, all the red gone.  
  
I jumped to help her, but found myself to be incredibly weak. I fell next to her on the ground as the last blue sparkle died. 


	7. Tonight's Discussion

"That Maclay girl is quite the handful. She acts tough, but I can tell she's a softy. She's always cussing and spitting, smoking up a storm. She insists on breaking every rule she can get her hands on."  
  
I raised my eyes from my plate that night at dinner. Mum was talking about Tara, who had arrived at the institute the day prior.  
  
"If she straightens up a bit and drops the 'I don't give a shit' act, she'll be free to go to a sponsor soon. She doesn't have any living family members and we don't have enough space to keep her at the institute. Hopefully she'll figure out we're not the bad guys. Maybe then she'll let us help her. I heard she went through some pretty traumatic stuff as a child. Her brother and her father were killed and her mother died of a sickness when she was very young. I'm worried about her. I must say she's growing on me."  
  
So, Tara was one of those 'tough chicks'. Why did I find that so hard to believe?  
  
I mean, I'd never spoken to her, but she seemed nice enough. We had spent some time in the same room, and I had helped escort her out to the police car.  
  
Sure, I had walked a few yards behind the officers, still afraid of what Tara was capable of. I mean, she was still a pistol packing psychotic teen, but I felt that odd yearning to be closer to her.  
  
Despite her issues and the fact that we had never spoken I still didn't think she seemed like the kind of person who would be a bad ass, maybe more of a confused kid.  
  
I knew she smoked, I had seen some of her x-rays and her lungs were pretty clogged up. Really nasty. She didn't seem like the kind of person that would be mean though.  
  
She looked scared, to be honest. Every time I looked into her eyes all I saw was fear, like she was replaying some moment in time over and over. I wonder what could have her so tweaked. I don't know much about gangsters, but doesn't that lifestyle involve shooting out of cars and setting small children on fire?  
  
If things like that happen on a daily bases what could irk her? Maybe her mum caught her masturbating once.  
  
God, if my mum walked in on me I would be traumatized for life too.  
  
All this thought of Mum tuned me back into her little minor-dramatic monologue. I think she expected us to be listening.  
  
Apparently, the second she got to the institute Tara started acting like a badass. Picking on people and just being an over all jerk.  
  
Mum said she spent most of her time outside, at the park, so she could smoke. I knew it was more then that. I knew that was just her excuse. Tara had a bond with the outdoors I could feel it. Just like I could feel my own bond with nature.  
  
Tara just didn't want to admit her love for the sky and the grass, and the way the wind kicks up the dust.  
  
I couldn't wait until Tara was 'safe' enough to go to a home, every day I prayed it would be ours.  
  
Why?  
  
I seemed to ask myself that question a lot.  
  
After thinking and pondering, looking and searching, digging, for the answer all I could come up with was IT. Or, inner desire, I guess, talk about id to the max.  
  
That damn panther.  
  
Why did I always want to be near her? Panther.  
  
Why did I beg for her to live with me? Panther.  
  
Why did I give a damn about her? Panther.  
  
I didn't know what this thing was, or what it was doing to me, but I didn't like it. 


	8. Strange encounter of the sexy kind

The institute was a nice place.  
  
The dorms were roomy and the food was good.  
  
They let us smoke if we were outside and bought the cigarettes with our own money.  
  
They gave us jobs and let us watch TV.  
  
It was a pretty good place.  
  
We had to go to meetings once a day though, to 'talk things out'. They thought it would help us.  
  
There was this great park they had, where we could blow off steam as long as we behaved. It was a nice day, warm, and the sun was shining something fierce out there in the park. I was all fixed up, my ribs still hurt a little, but my wraps got changed twice a day. I guess I was doing pretty well.  
  
I watched the brunette approach. She had ruby red lips and skin the color of a mocha. Her hips swayed when she walked and the leather she wore was deliciously tight. The sun reflected of her form fitting pants, I could see myself in them, literally.  
  
Bleep bleep bleep, lesbidar is picking up readings at approximately 25 meters to the northwest! Yep, this pretty little catch was gonna be all mine.  
  
She stopped in front of me and pointed to the cigarette I was sucking on.  
  
"Spare a light?" Her voice was smooth and silky to the ear, but grainy and pained to the soul.  
  
I reached in my back pocket and tossed her the pack. She pulled one out with her teeth and lit it with a match she struck on the zipper of her leather jacket. She waved out the match and leaned next to me against the gate that separated us from the outside world.  
  
"Faith." She said.  
  
"Tara." I responded. I had heard rumors about her, she had been here the longest. Aparently, she killed a guy. I didn't believe it.  
  
"You new?  
  
I nodded.  
  
"Though so, ain't never seen you 'round before."  
  
"They said I can leave soon, go to some house and learn to be a 'productive citizen.'" The sarcastic whit poured though my veins and I smirked, it felt good.  
  
"I'll probably be here forever. They swear they'll never let me out. Say I'm too bad. I'm just to much fun for them to handle."  
  
I stood to my full height and walked around to face her. "You look like a lot of fun." I smirked as I looked her up and down.  
  
"Oh, I'm fun alright." She puffed some smoke in my face and dropped her cigarette on the ground, crushing it under the toe of her boot. She glanced up at me with her hazel eyes and smiled.  
  
My breath caught in my throat when she pressed her body into mine.  
  
Our faces were millimeters apart when a masculine voice echoed through the park. "Faith!"  
  
Damnit!  
  
She smirked and turned towards the voice, her plush lips grazing mine before she walked off towards the pissy guard standing at the side entrance to the institute.  
  
"I swear, Johnny, I didn't do it!" She yelled to him. "Thanks for the smoke, T." Faith called over her shoulder, lifting a hand in parting grace.  
  
Damnit!  
  
I spun around and kicked the fence, smashing the butt of my cigarette into one of the metal support rods.  
  
Damnit! 


End file.
